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Blogs from Shinjuku, Tokyo, Japan, Asia - page 9
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November 22nd 2008
Am Samstag war wunderschoenes Wetter. Sonnig und warm in der Sonne, im Schatten kuehl. Ich habe mich frueh auf den Weg nach Shinjuku zum Metropolitan Office Building gemacht. Ein sehr schoenes und vor allem modernes Rathaus. Man kann umsonst die schoene Aussicht auf Tokyo geniessen. Ich wuerde jedem raten, seine Tour durch Tokyo hier zu beginnen, vor allem weil es　hier im Tourist Information Center ganz viele Infos ueber Tokyo gibt und die Angestellten super gut englisch sprechen. Halt ein guter Ausganzpunkt fuer jeden Tokyo-reisenden. Leider wusste ich das nicht frueher. Da das Wetter so schoen klar war, konnte ich zum ersten mal Fujisan sehen :) dieser Berg hat echt eine super Ausstrahlung, die man leider nicht auf Fotos festhalten kann. Die Aussicht auf Tokyo war atemberaubend schoen. :) Und ich konnte zusaetzlich einpaar Souvenirs kaufen. Danach ... read more
November 16th 2008
I have been back a week but I have not slowed down a minute since landing so I decided I had better take some time this weekend and post my travel blog about Tokyo. In one sentence, I must say it was one of the cleanest city with these nicest people! Wow, it was a great trip. I started from Moscow and headed to Frankfurt. When I first started planning my trip, Aeroflot did not run non-stop flights between Moscow and Tokyo. One of the better connections was on Lufthansa through Frankfurt, which would also make for a great short visit to see Jetta, Piage and Liam (sister, niece and nephew). Well, by the time I actually booked the tickets, Aeroflot had direct flights and to mix and match Aeroflot and Lufthansa got to be very ... read more
October 10th 2008
Arriving in a strange city on a Friday evening before a long weekend at 4.30 p.m. is not usually the best strategy. When that city happens to be Tokyo and the railway station is Shinjuku things just get a little bit more "interesting". Shinjuku is the world's busiest railway station and if you have seen video clips of railway personnel pushing people into train carriages a la sardines in a can - that would be Shinjuku at rush hour. The random motion of people in Shinjuku makes it seem like one big pachinko game with the people replacing the metal balls. You have to know which exit you want and when you do get there you're not yet at ground level to make sense of where you are. That is the next challenge: how get to ... read more
September 22nd 2008
Very nice opening ceremony. I don't know why it was one week before classes started. There are about 300 students in this year's SILS class, half of which are the 1 year study abroad students. The dean spoke to us about stuff that dean talk about. Oddly enough he is a very tall British man from Cambridge. Because of that he said nothing using many many words. The best part was the Wase-Oke, short for Waseda Symphony Orchestra. There were about 40 of them at the ceremony playing at the beginning and end. In total, there are 300 members. I want to look into that. Another example of brutal Tokyo efficiency...at diner-type restaurants, each table has a button. You press it and your waiter comes. Imagine one of those at Yogi's...... read more
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September 17th 2008
I am completely and whole heartedly in love with my dance studio which is why I'm having a bit of a hard time letting go of it. I've been saying goodbye all week in preparation for my last ever lesson tonight and bouncing and dancing my little heart out trying to master the hand slapping, foot stomping and crazy mad butterfly arms that will forever more remind me of Tokyo. It's hard to explain how much going to dancing has changed my life in Japan - I've learnt half of my Japanese from there, it's taken up the majority of my evenings and commandered my social life with almost every weekend now involving a night out with the Hip Hop girls in Shibuya busting out the moves from that weeks lessons. I've made so many friends ... read more
August 28th 2008
My life has become a whirlwind of drinking, dancing, celebrities (both minor and major) and a unique blend of Korean/Japanese fusion. And I owe it all to Lucy. She took me out with her Korean friends the other weekend and after hours of booty shaking and raising the roof we were making our way back slowly to the station when she stopped and grabbed her friends arm "Oh my god" she said urgently "It's Tablo" "Where?!" Nicky cried back excitedly before catching sight of the short Korean singer on the street "Oh my god!" they both cried "Tablo!" "Tablo!" Tablo turned around and waved at our posse and I decided to get involved in the action "Tablo!" I screamed waving my hands "Tablo, I love you too!" Tablo gave me a startled look and then waved ... read more
August 22nd 2008
At 6am we were rudely awoken by the snoring man but we managed to get back to sleep and got up around 10am. We had breakfast, took our morning trip to Starbucks and decided to explore Shinjuku, Tokyos business district. We visited the Toyko Metropolitan Government Building and took the lift to the 45th floor. It is the tallest building in Tokyo, standing at 243 metres, the views were amazing. One a clear day you can see Mount Fuji but sadly it was a bit too hazy. We took the metro back to Asakusa for lunch at a restaurant recommended to us by two English guys from the hostel. The food wasn't great, we all had sticky rice, chicken, onions and egg. The chicken looked like cat and the rice was extremely sweet but the miso ... read more
August 22nd 2008
After getting off the train at the very crowded Tokyo station, I was caught up in intense feelings of excitement and before finding a place to stay for the night I felt like to had to go explore the city for a bit. I ended up walking around for about 2-3 hours with my backpack on in Hinjuku and saw a festival that included many traditional dances and mountains of street food. I made my way through a park and checked out one of the old shrines in the middle of the city for a bit and took everything in for a few moments. My next task was to find the place where my fellow Youngdo teachers- Phil and Tami were staying at. They both flew into Osaka and we met up in Tokyo for some ... read more
August 21st 2008
My first impressions of Japan were nothing but positive. The first thing I noticed was the cleanliness of Hakata- at least the section of the city I saw. The bus driver was very helpful in showing me how to make change with the fancy yen fare machine even though we could not communicate with spoken words. Wow, another surprise, everyone drives on the other side of the street- one more thing to be cautious about when crossing the street. I successfully board the shinkansen bullet train which takes me to Osaka (or halfway to Tokyo- my first destination). Wow, how impressive- being the transportation engineer that I am and having studied about the world's best high speed rail system in Japan in my graduate coursework- I have to admit this train left quite an impression on ... read more
